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Relationships Can’t Live On Autopilot
People change, desires shift, and new needs don’t allow for complacency.
As my partner and I watched the sun slowly dip beneath the horizon of the Pacific Ocean, I thought back on the journey that got us where we are. We were supposed to be backpacking across the world for a year, me working freelance and her enjoying a year off before grad school. But the world is different than it was when we first dreamed this dream. We’re different, too.
That’s the thing most people don’t realize. The world we know is constantly evolving, constantly moving forward, constantly creating new versions of itself. And in the same way, the people we love are doing the same. Relationships are living, breathing things, susceptible to change.
What brings us happiness in life, in our relationships, in our work, in our play, changes. It grows and ebbs and flows, as any natural thing does. And if we aren’t able to recognize, accept, and work through these changes, we get lost.
When partners don’t talk about their new needs, new wants, their changing ideals, relationships run the potential of self-destruction. Likewise, assuming things will always be the same poses similar risks.